Po­lit­i­cal views on EU

■ I think it’s ex­tremely un­likely that the EU will frac­ture with na­tions drop­ping off the edge

— John Ma­jor (2011)

■ The UK is not go­ing to leave the EU. Of course not. We are in­ex­tri­ca­bly wound up with Europe. In terms of cul­ture, his­tory, and ge­og­ra­phy, we are a Euro­pean na­tion

— Nick Clegg (2012)

■ The Bri­tish peo­ple have de­cided to leave. It is a sad de­ci­sion, but one which I re­spect. The vote puts the EU in dif­fi­cul­ties. It must recog­nise its short­falls

— Fran­cois Hol­lande

(2016)

■ The UK out­side of the EU will end up be­ing a mid­sized econ­omy, some­where in the mid­dle of the At­lant i c Ocean, in nei­ther Amer­ica nor Europe

— Mark Rutte (2016)

■ The EU is the world’s most suc­cess­ful invention for ad­vanc­ing peace

— John Bru­ton (2016)

■ We link our fu­ture to the euro, to the eu­ro­zone, and to the EU while be­ing the near­est neigh­bour of UK with, ob­vi­ously, a com­mon travel area and a very close work­ing re­la­tion­ship with the UK

— Enda Kenny (2015)

■ It’s a Euro­pean Union of eco­nomic fail­ure, of mass un­em­ploy­ment, and of low growth

— Nigel Farage (2012)

■ I be­lieve that we have an ex­tra­or­di­nary op­por­tu­nity for the US and EU to lead the world in de­vel­op­ing and im­ple­ment­ing new and more ef­fi­cient tech­nolo­gies

— smart elec­tri­cal grids and elec­tri­cal ve­hi­cles

— Hil­lary Clin­ton

(2011)

■ I do not have the slight­est bit of con­fi­dence in the Euro­pean Union to pro­tect the bor­ders of the EU

— Ma­rine Le Pen

(2015)

■ Go­ing through a cri­sis is a chance for Europe to be more co- or­di­nated, more in­te­grated. We’re ac­tu­ally talk­ing about a Euro­pean Mon­e­tary Fund or euro bonds, about guar­an­tees for coun­tries, about eco­nomic gover­nance in the EU. That shows the strength of Europe